EHAI Meets with the Lagos State Ministry of Health to Share Study Findings

Dissemination of the findings of the study on the Strongest Motivators for Acting on Routine Health Information in Family Planning in Lagos state.

The study was funded by the USAID MEASURE Evaluation Small Grants, administered by the University of North Carolina and implemented by Equitable Health Access Initiative (EHAI).

The dissemination meeting held at the Conference Room of the Lagos State Ministry of Health on the 1st of June 2018. In attendance were representations from the Lagos State Ministry of Health with the remarkable presence of the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, the Head of Planning and the Chairman of the EHAI board of Trustees Prof Aba Sagoe. Other participants include representatives of the Civil Society and NGOs working in reproductive health in the state. The meeting was chaired by the Director of Family Health and Nutrition, LSMOH, Dr F.F. Oludara.

Study Location: Three Local Government Areas (LGA) in Lagos state – Ikeja, Shomolu and Mainland. These LGAs were drawn from the three senatorial districts of the state (the area with the highest use of family planning in the country)

Inability to generalize the findings to the entire country since the study was confined to Lagos state. We recommend replicating the study in Nigeria’s five other geopolitical zones.

Data collection relied primarily on self-reporting, which can raise questions about validity and reliability of information that could be biased by personal behaviors and feelings. We thoroughly trained the interviewers to ensure the elicited responses were as close as possible to the truth.

Study Findings

Awareness of FP Indicators

90 percent of respondents are aware of RHI indicators in FP.

Commonest indicator (91.7%) is the number of injectables given.

The most unfamiliar indicator (2.7%) is the number of referrals for FP services from prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).

Biggest facilitators to using RHI in FP are:

Availability of staff skilled in M&E (92.9%)

Availability of staff skilled in record keeping (94.8%)

Management or supervisors interested in data quality and use (92.7%)

Regular feedback from higher levels on reports sent with collected FP data (93.9%)